Maria Louisa in July 1815: "Madame Mere and Cardinal Fesch left yesterday
for Tuscany. We do not know exactly where. Joseph is. Lucien is in
England under a false name, Jerome in Switzerland, Louis at Rome. Queen
Hortense has set out for Switzerland, whither General de Flahault and his
mother will follow her. Murat seems to be still at Toulon; this,
however, is not certain." Was ever such an account of a dynasty given?
These had all been among the great ones of Europe: in a moment they were
fugitives, several of them having for the rest of their lives a bitter
struggle with poverty. Fortunately for them the Pope, the King of
Holland, and the Grand-Duke of Tuscany, were not under heavy obligations
to Napoleon, and could thus afford to give to his family the protection
denied them by those monarchs who believed themselves bound to redeem
their former servility.

When Napoleon landed Maria Louisa was in Austria, and she was eager to
assist in taking every precaution to prevent her son, the young King of
Rome, being spirited off to join his father, whose fortunes she had sworn
to share: She herself was fast falling under the influence of the
one-eyed Austrian General, Neipperg, just then left a widower, who was
soon to be admitted to share her bed. By 1823 she seemed to have
entirely forgotten the different members of the Bonaparte family,
speaking of her life in France as "a bad dream." She obtained the
Grand-Duchy of Parma, where she reigned till 1847, marrying a third
time, it is said, the Count Bombellea, and dying, just too soon to be
hunted from her Duchy by the Revolution of 1848.

There is something very touching in most that we know of the poor young
King of Rome, from his childish but strangely prescient resistance to his
removal from Paris to Blois on the approach of the Allies in 1814, to the
message of remembrance sent in after years to the column of the Place
Vendome, "his only friend in Paris."

At four years of age Meneval describes him as gentle, but quick in
answering, strong, and with excellent health. "Light curly hair in
ringlets set off a fresh face, while fine blue eyes lit up his regular
features: He was precociously intelligent, and knew more than most
children older than himself." When Meneval--the former secretary of his
father, giving up his post in Austria with Maria Louisa, as he was about
to rejoin Napoleon--took farewell of the Prince in May 1815, the poor
little motherless child drew me